Business networking involves building a mutually beneficial relationship with other professionals and potential clients. Among the potential gains to be made from networking, sharing of knowledge is the most beneficial. Business networking is important to boosting business sales. Given below are some professional social media platforms that help people connect with industry decision-makers, and help them keep up with events and news that they care about.
1) Meetup - Meetup notifies users of any local meetups that they might be interested in, as they are created. Users can specify meetings that they are interested in by topics, location, and date. If there is nothing relevant happening, a user can create an event, and invite other professionals to them via email or Facebook. They can also share a link to them on other networking platforms. Through this platform, users can find communities of like-minded people. It is a wonderful platform for self-promotion and business promotion.
2) Quora - Users of Quora can post questions, which anyone may answer.Quora also prompts users who have previously answered questions on the same subject to attempt to answer. It is a knowledge-sharing website, where in addition to questions, users can search for specific topics like ‘PR trends during the pandemic’, and can look up what others are discussing about the topic. It is also a great way to see what customers are thinking about, and what challenges they face. The platform also features in-depth conversations about niche topics.
3) AngelList - Angellist is a platform for startups, angel investors, and job-seekers who are keen to work at startups. Through the platform, users can invest in startups. Investors on the platform can be filtered by location, number of investments, industry, and more. It is easy to find people on AngelList. The search works well to find people by name. This platform is an excellent way to nurture opportunities.
4) Slack - Slack is not just a messenger app used to communicate and collaborate with coworkers and business partners. Each community on Slack has a mix of public threads and the option to DM anyone else in the community. It is an effective platform for online networking. Many businesses use Slack to create groups based on specific interests. The platform allows companies to have a measure of control over who can use it through the invitation system.
5) Wistia - Wistia offers business specific video hosting, as well as marketing and analytics tools. This platform is great for landing page sales or explainer videos. One of its popular software tools is Soapbox, which makes it easy for anyone to record professional-looking videos that businesses can affordably create and share. Wistia also hosts an online community called brand affinity marketing, where marketing professionals can share tips and insights on building a brand and connecting with target audiences.
6) Xing - Through Xing, users can network with other business professionals, find job opportunities, training courses, information about seminars. Users can post and search for jobs, and research companies. The platform offers users public communication and other functions designed to facilitate expert networking in different languages. Users can exchange views in around 50,000 specialist groups.
